This basic recipe for vanilla ice cream is delicious as is, or with additions of chocolate chips, pieces of cookies, or other additions of your choice. Also, try topping with homemade chocolate sauce orstrawberry dessert sauce.

Fabulous homemade vanilla ice cream

Ingredients:

2 cups of full fat milk

6 egg yolks

1 cup of granulated sugar

1 teaspoon of vanilla extract

1 1/4 cup of whipping cream (or double cream)

Preparation:

In a mixing bowl, beat the egg yolks, sugar, and vanilla until smooth and fully blended. In a saucepan, heat the milk (do not boil). When hot (steaming), add the egg mixture slowly, whisking continuously. Reduce heat to low, and cook until it becomes a smooth custard, stirring to keep from boiling.

Note:

Alternatively, use a doubleboiler.

Remove custard from the heat and set aside to cool.

When completely cooled, whip the cream to stiff peaks and gently fold into the custard mixture with a spatula. Transfer to an ice cream maker and freeze according to directions.

Without an ice cream maker: Pour into a metal container (baking pan works well), cover with lid or foil, and freeze for one hour. Remove, break up with a metal spoon, transfer to a mixing bowl and beat with an electric mixer (30 seconds) or whisk briskly until smooth, and freeze again. Repeat after another hour. Freeze for 3 hours before serving or packing into smaller closed containers.

Yield: approximately 1 quart

Additions: When adding dry pieces of chocolate, cereal, cookie pieces, etc., stir them just before adding to the ice cream freezer, or after the first freeze if using the old-fashioned method.